Agreed 100%. I've been here for 9 years and while I love this place, I'm considering to move. "Small pond" indeed: 3 out of 4 recruiters who called me within last half year were all looking for RoR coders for Baer's startup (1st mentor in their list), the other Rails shop in town being FiveRuns. This applies pretty much to everything software: the city's tech scene is divided between about 4 well-known "gangs" of execs and entrepreneurs with essentially the same people running the show.